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Time & Perspective Quote by Marc Jacobs

"That was a time when I did love music, I couldn't get enough of what was going on. Maybe it was Nirvana that brought me back. I guess it was a comfort because something that sounded so right - and non-commercial - had become so influential, so immediately"

About this Quote

Jacobs is reminiscing about a moment when taste felt like a lifeline, not a lifestyle accessory. The phrasing is telling: he "did love music" like it was a phase he left and then re-entered, and Nirvana functions less as a band than as a cultural defibrillator. "Brought me back" implies a drift into numbness - personal, creative, or both - that got interrupted by a sound that made feeling possible again.

The key tension sits in his careful pairing of "sounded so right" with "non-commercial". He is describing authenticity, but also the rare thrill of watching authenticity win. Nirvana, in this telling, is comfort food for anyone anxious about the market swallowing meaning: proof that something raw could hit the mainstream without immediately reading as compromised. Jacobs is savvy enough to know how quickly "non-commercial" becomes a brand identity, yet he clings to the initial impact - "so influential, so immediately" - as if speed itself certifies truth. This was art that didn't wait for permission.

Context matters: Jacobs came up as fashion accelerated into big business, with designers increasingly asked to produce constant novelty under corporate oversight. His attraction to Nirvana isn't just fandom; it's a fantasy of creative legitimacy surviving mass exposure. Under the nostalgia is a designer's perennial question: can you reach everyone without flattening what made you worth hearing in the first place?

Quote Details

TopicMusic
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Jacobs, Marc. (2026, January 18). That was a time when I did love music, I couldn't get enough of what was going on. Maybe it was Nirvana that brought me back. I guess it was a comfort because something that sounded so right - and non-commercial - had become so influential, so immediately. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/that-was-a-time-when-i-did-love-music-i-couldnt-23198/

Chicago Style
Jacobs, Marc. "That was a time when I did love music, I couldn't get enough of what was going on. Maybe it was Nirvana that brought me back. I guess it was a comfort because something that sounded so right - and non-commercial - had become so influential, so immediately." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/that-was-a-time-when-i-did-love-music-i-couldnt-23198/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"That was a time when I did love music, I couldn't get enough of what was going on. Maybe it was Nirvana that brought me back. I guess it was a comfort because something that sounded so right - and non-commercial - had become so influential, so immediately." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/that-was-a-time-when-i-did-love-music-i-couldnt-23198/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.

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Marc Jacobs (born April 9, 1963) is a Designer from USA.

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